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The NHL Awards and Red Carpet Live-Blog

by
Dave Lozo
/ NHL.com

Welcome to the NHL Awards Show live-blog. I'm your host, Dave Lozo. I'm not in Las Vegas, because I am not a valuable enough employee to send to an event like this. Instead, I am sitting on my couch watching "I Love You, Beth Cooper" as I wait for the Red Carpet Show to start. It's just like being in Las Vegas, except it's completely the opposite.

I don't really know what I'm supposed to do during the red carpet portion of the show. When I watch the Oscars with my girlfriends, all of us curled up on the floor eating ice cream as we discuss who would be better for George Clooney, we rip on all the ugly dresses of the women. But I work for the NHL. I can't exactly tell you that I think Shea Weber's suit looks like it's from the future and that Jeremy Roenick is dressed like Don Johnson.

It's 4:28 as I type this, so if any of that is true, it's a complete coincidence.

Basically, Gary Bettman could walk the carpet dressed like Lady Gaga and all I would say is, "Commish looks great dressed in gold paint. Another great decision by my boss."

But it doesn't mean we still can't have fun. For instance, Daniel Sedin is up for the Hart Trophy, but Henrik Sedin won't be in attendance. When Daniel makes his appearance on the carpet, it will be funny when I say that I don't know where Henrik is, but wherever he is, I'm pretty sure he's wearing the exact same thing.

So hang out, watch the red carpet on either NHL Network or NHL.com at 5, then flip over to the awards show on Versus and CBC at 7. Those are Eastern times. Sorry if you're just waking up on the West Coast, but that's the punishment for living on the prettier coast.

8:58 -- The final award of the night goes to Corey Perry, who takes home the Hart. What a late-season push for this guy. And to get the award from international icon Jennifer Beals, too. I hope Corey isn't a flash in the pan. He should dance his way into next season. I hope they both sit in a chair in the back and dunk themselves in water. That's it for the night! You take care and drive home safely!
8:55 -- Plays of the year. I hope I make it on there.

8:49 -- Jon Hamm is the best.

8:44 -- I don't know these guys at all. But is this song really called OMG? I hope it is. I also hope the other songs on this album are SOL, LOL, WTF, TTYL and ROFLMAO.

8:37 -- That's gotta be a dagger if you're a Canuck in the audience. Hey, we're going to bring out the Cup for no real reason other than to show it to you. Look! It's shiny! And now we're walking away with it.

8:30 -- The Real Housewives aren't up on the pronunciation on Martin St. Louis. I'm just happy they got through the presentation without fighting. Is that what real houswives do? I don't know.

8:20 -- New Bucket List item -- receive an award from Army members who just rappelled down from the sky.

8:13 -- At some point, doesn't the Geico Caveman have to get over it?

8:11 -- After a round of OH MY GOD I CAN'T LOOK AT THAT GRAPHIC INJURY, Ian Laperriere wins the Masterton. Good for him. Good dude. Not so sure about that tie though.

8:06 --Ted Lindsay with a semi-zinger at Jay Mohr. To be fair, the Walken impression was run into the ground, but at least it was good. No one ever got sick of Wayne Gretzky being awesome. Bring back Walken, Jay.

7:57 -- Mike Gillis gets the GM of the year award. Tough break for Steve Yzerman. Nothing has gone that guy's way in his life. Or, the opposite of that. He'll probably win it next year as long as the Lightning show up for all 82 games.

7:40 -- Good for Dan Bylsma. He did more with fallen stars than an astronomer.

7:33 -- So based on that commercial with the girl with the sweaty armpits, that guy with her was the doctor who prescribed the deodorant? Doesn't that go against the rules of being a doctor? Also, are there sweaty armpit doctors out there? What are they called? Pitstetricians? That commercial left more questions than answers.

7:30 --Ryan Kesler and Criss Angel on the same stage. Of course. It's the Awards show.

7:23 -- It would've been funny if Sedin didn't get the Art Ross. "After reviewing game film, we found 11 uncounted assists for Martin St. Louis. Come on up here, Marty!"

7:16 -- Yep, she said Nicklas Lindstrom. One day, that guy is going to do something that earns him some notoriety in the sports world.

7:14 -- Man, this is awkward. I know Shawn Roarke is there, and if I know him, and I think I do, he's probably wearing the exact same thing as Kevin Smith. Shawn loves his jean shorts so much at events like this. Actually, it's a little-known fact that all NHL.com writers wear jean shorts to games. It's a uniform for us.

7:06 -- I don't know about you, but that Skittles joke landed with me.

7:02 -- Jay Mohr shirtless and totally naked. And we're off!

6:56 -- We're almost at the Awards Show. Flip over to Versus or CBC. I need to conduct some personal business before they start. If anyone says anything crazy, let me know.

6:52 -- I wonder if Chara is tired of having people put Big in front of his name. Big Zdeno Chara. What if we used obvious adjectives to describe other players? Tiny Mats Zuccarello. Bendy Antti Niemi. Young Jeff Skinner. I just realized that's exactly how they're described. Carry on.

6:50 -- Just 10 more minutes left in the preshow, then we've got the actual show. I can't wait for Jay Mohr's monologue, for one reason or another.

6:47 -- I think Jon Hamm went with the beard to sort of ugg himself down, but it's not working. It's like Heidi Klum showing up somewhere with a rash on her neck. Sorry, but it's not working. It must be tough to be that good looking, struggling to be taken seriously. It took me a long time, but then I realized I wasn't that good looking and no one was taking me seriously anyway.

6:41 -- Luongo says no to the tie. He must really enjoy shootouts. Ha. Get it? Tie, shootout. Shut up. Pretty funny how they brought him out after Thomas.

6:38 -- Timmy has no idea where the Conn Smythe Trophy is. I love that. If I misplace my work laptop for a minute, I'm freaking out. This guy has no idea where his once-in-a-lifetime trophy is, he couldn't care less. The lesson here -- it's awesome being a millionaire.

6:35 --Tim Thomas with a mustache is Michael Cudlitz from Southland. Look it up.

6:34 -- Hockey players are too nice. These league needs someone like Tracy Morgan, a loose cannon who can fly off the handle at any time. We've got 20 minutes left here. I'm demanding a player fly off the handle and start taking shots at other players. "And another thing, Luongo. I'm winning the Vezina too!" -- Tim Thomas

6:31 --Martin St. Louis, a true gentleman. Ha. He's wearing the same clothes as last year. It's great how he doesn't care. Like Vince Vaughn in Dodgeball.

6:29 -- I'm pretty sure a guy on Wizards of Waverly Place, as much as he wants to believe it, wouldn't be playing hockey in the NHL if he wasn't doing his current job, which is working on Wizards of Waverly Place. The thing about this David Henrie is he seems really down to earth and not smug at all.

6:26 -- As a single guy in the NHL, it must be nice when Jeremy Roenick calls you the MVP of last night and they cut away from the interview.

6:24 -- Who is this Barbados guy dressing everyone for this thing? Is he Barbados Slim from Futurama?

6:20 -- Poor Heidi Androl. If you told me I had to interview Criss Angel in that dress, I'd immediatlely quit. But man, I would've looked great in that dress. I have nice shoulders.

6:18 --Nicklas Lidstrom has a family that looks like it should be modeling stuff for Sears Christmas catalog stuff. Or whatever the equivalent of Christmas is in Sweden. Bjornflugen, I believe it's called over there. Nick's wife just said he loves Pavel Datsyuk. Knowing how nice Nick is, I think it would be great if we all imagine him flying off the handle when the cameras stop rolling. "I'm your favorite player! Me! Nicklas Lidstrom! Why do I take you anywhere?!?!"

6:15 --Dustin Brown looks like he spent upwards of 3 minutes picking out his suit. It's probably nice, but surrounded by all these guys, it looks average. Thus concludes me making fun of the guy who is nominated for an award for his charity work.

6:12 --Shea Weber should keep the beard year-round. Then shave it for the playoffs. Like some sort of bizarro hockey player. It's too good. Plus, what about the family of doves that lived in there? Where did they go when he shaved it after the Canucks series? Someone needs to investigate.

6:08 -- David Poile and his wife are being asked how they spent their time in Vegas. Of course, it was typical old married couple stuff. Dinner, show, pool. I think it would be great if he said, "Well, we hit the Spearmint Rhino two nights ago, but we took off early when I fought the bouncer. Totally wrecked him. After that, we gambled on high stakes monkey knife fights in an underground casino. Oh, we saw Seinfeld too. He's still got it."

6:05 --Jeff Skinner's red carpet interview was about how thousands of teenage girls love him, how he was a model at a photo shoot, how he gets tons of fan mail and how he's one of the best hockey players in the League. He's just like me when I was 18, except for all the stuff I just wrote about.

6:02 -- Where I can get one of those sticks with the players name at the top? Can I get one with my name on it? I like to declare my arrival in a dramatic way, and that seems like a good way to do it. I'm like an Englishman in the 1500s. I enjoy jamming a stick in the ground and declaring that area mine.
6:00 -- Weekes complimenting Doug Weight's wife on her dress and accessories. If it was anyone else, I'd say back off, man. She's married. But that man knows fashion. We took some crazy early flights during the Cup Final, and even when he was dressed down in sweats and a T-shirt, he looked better than me in a suit. That guy knows fashion. He's a backup to no one in that department. Get it? Backup? Because he was a backup goalie? Get it?

5:57 -- Sweet, a Barry Trotz sighting. I would've bet my entire life he was a Garth Brooks fan. Now Heidi is getting on him for not being a Dirks Bentley fan. And for not being a Carrie Underwood fan. And with that sentence, I just set a new personal record for writing about country music. Pickup trucks, my lady ran out on me, beer. And, done!

5:51 --Logan Couture is angry that it's hot. If you've all seen that tumblr with the NHL players as kids, you know how angry he can get. Heidi is chatting him up about his Twitter now too. Couture said his life is like a lot of Drake songs. I'm not familiar with this Drake, but his cakes are delicious. I hope my life becomes like a song about cakes. "Cake is sweet, just like Dave, eating cake is like me, all the rave." I know. Rapper. Leave me alone.

5:49 -- Confronting Mike Gillis with his fake Twitter was as awesome as I imagined it. It was like Joseph Gordon-Levitt explaining to someone what Inception is for the first time. Anger, confusion. I wish I was DVRing that.

5:46 -- I don't know who that band was, but it's always nice to see a group of guys I can relate to. They look like me, dress like me. It's nice to not feel alone in the world.

5:41 -- Jay refuses to admit he does a Walken impression. Chris Tucker? Don't run from your past, Jay! Also, those jokes that got cut were cut wisely. I still don't get the gut(s) joke. Nice suit, though.

5:38 -- Jay Mohr makes his appearance. Wouldn't it be great if the NHL made him do half the show as Christopher Walken? He just dropped a Pens/Caps stink-in-the-playoffs joke. He said that one got cut. I'm assuming it wasn't for content. He said brace for Alex Burrows fingers jokes. Burrows and Legwand should hang out together.

5:34 -- Still no players. "I Love You, Beth Cooper" is still on my TV without the sound. Hayden Pantsair is hugging the nerd, so I assume he won her over. I hope Roberto Luongo got a haircut. That hair in that Vegas heat is a disaster waiting to happen.

5:27 -- Here come the players! Time to get some jokes ready about suits that cost more than I make in a year. Note: I don't make that much money.

5:24 -- Poor David Legwand. He could cure cancer, discover life on another planet and reverse the aging process, but people would still come up to him and say, "Aren't you that guy who was undressed by Bobby Ryan in the playoffs?"

5:21 -- Blues jersey guy! My stream cut out. Did he pick Long Island to win the Calder? I'm guessing he said Grabner. Still, it's funnier if I pretend his pick for rookie of the year is Long Island.

5:18 -- So once the awards show is over, that's the end of calling Jeff Skinner "Bieber," right? It's like Sid the Kid. Those nicknames won't be cute when they're 36.

5:15 -- We're 15 minutes deep, and we're still recapping the finalists. I thought I'd be making fun of outfits by now. None of the hosts are dressed all that bad, but I feel like JR and Weekes needed to coordinate. Both look fine, but Weekes is outdressing everyone in the tux. It's like when me and Dan Rosen go out after games and I'm in the suit and he's in the yoga pants and half-shirt. We don't match.

5:12 -- Deb is excited to see Jon Hamm. Much like Brian Fontana, I love the ladies, but man is that guy handsome. If I stood next to him, you'd mistake me for Danny DeVito. Heck, you might mistake me for Danny DeVito anyway.
5:10 -- Cool, Bruins Cup tickets. Look at those tickets. Pull back, tickets, tickets, pull back and OH MY GOD!

5:05 -- Check out the guy behind Deb in the Blues jersey. There are a lot of rules about Vegas, but wearing a hockey jersey in the desert should be illegal. Wear a t-shirt, man. You look like you're going to pass out.

5:03 -- It's Roenick! Weekes! Kauffman! Meisner! I don't know that last person, but my stream started late and she said Weekes doesn't look like chocolate pudding. I'm uncomfortable three minutes into this thing. And there's Heidi!